


The Mother We Share

by welcometocabeswater



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU, Babies, Everyone basically adores blue, F/M, First Time, Heterosexual Sex, Intense Sargerny Friendship, Intense longing, M/M, OT5, Pregnant Blue, Sexual Content, So Much ot5 handholding, So Very Many Platonic Kisses, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, bluesy - Freeform, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welcometocabeswater/pseuds/welcometocabeswater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn't mean anything when it happened. She was curious and never meant anything to come of it. Noah Czerny finds one freshly pregnant Blue at Nino's one day, and introduces her to three boys who will change her life for the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mother We Share

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gganseyiii](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gganseyiii).



> My thanks and praise to Maggie Stiefvater for creating this series. It is hers and hers alone. 
> 
> Title taken from Chrvches' song of the same name. :)

I.

“Are you okay?” she’s ruminating over the stick in her hands as she wanders out of the ladies room at Nino’s that afternoon. Blue nearly drops the thin strip of plastic as the sound yanks her out of her numb reverie and back to reality. Reality, where she could very well be someone’s mother in nine months from now…

“It’s positive, isn’t it?” the Smudgy One asks plainly, far too forward for his own good. She hasn’t spoken a word to him yet, much less gotten a good look at him from across the room when President Cell Phone had approached her earlier. He’s watching her carefully, thoughtfully, but far from judgmental.

She bites her lip, certain she doesn’t want to be having this conversation with a complete stranger, but also ponders the advantages of unloading on someone who doesn't already know her as the no-nonsense, clean-slate, feminist Blue Sargent, who would never run off with random boys and well…

He simply nods, the slightest tilt of his chin. The sight of her with pregnancy test in hand and that stricken, torn look on her face is confirmation enough. He already knows.

“I-I didn’t mean for this to happen,” the words whoosh out of her in an embarrassed hush. She can feel her cheeks heat with the steady burn of humiliation. To be caught out like this…

The weight of his gaze seems to cut right through her, slicing her open for an unwanted, spontaneous biopsy. She could suck all her secrets further into the depths of her mind and he’d still know every single one as if she’d spoken them out loud. “I don’t think anyone who takes a pregnancy test in the middle of a diner bathroom does, really…” he deadpans thoughtfully, his sightline traveling back to his friends, relaxing back in their booth.

President Cell Phone is watching them intently, just waiting for the moment to linger long enough for him to leap up and extricate his wayward friend from the situation. She sees his eyes shift and lock on the stick in her hand and she hurriedly buries it in a deep side pocket of her skirt.

“Hey.” She feels something brush against her arm and she realizes the Smudge’s hand presses tentatively against the crook of her elbow. “It’s going to be okay, you know,” he says, and for some reason, Blue wants to believe this strange contradiction of calming voice and slovenly, grimy looks.  
“Come meet my friends. They’re nice. They’ll like you.”

 

II.

 

Noah’s friends, as it turns out, are all nice, save one, who glares and sneers and scoffs his way through his days. Ronan remains the most dubious of the newest addition to the group, and keeps carefully aloof whenever babies come into the topic of conversation. In fact, he has a nasty habit of up and leaving without a single word.

Gansey, however, takes to Blue instantly. Questions pour out of him utterly unfiltered as he leans forward on elbows over scattered, yellowing notes on leylines, and puts his scholar’s face on. Adam often sits back in his booth and simply watches, aghast that someone has actually succeeded in reeling his friend out of his fixation on Welsh mythology for once.

“Jane,” Gansey catches her by the elbow one day while leaving Nino’s barely a week after they first meet. He clears his throat, straightening up as if steeling himself to give a hearty speech. “I don’t want to seem to forward, but I was wondering if maybe you might…” his hands begin a frenetic dance, with minds of their own, tumbling over each other as he talks. “…want someone there, with you. At your first appointment. You know, for moral support.”

Blue’s brows hike up behind the fringe of her hair. She doesn’t know what to say to this, to a boy she’s only just met, willingly volunteering himself for such a daunting task. When she doesn’t respond right away, he drives onward. “I mean, you shouldn’t go alone. It’s supposed to be a really emotional time and I don’t want you to think you don’t have anyone. I mean, I know you probably have your mom, but…”

“Yes,” she makes her decision before she has time to overthink it. Gansey freezes, mid-babble and waits for the other shoe to drop. “Yes, you can come.”

Gansey’s carefully controlled while they discuss the logistics. They exchange polite smiles and he watches her as she leaves. A fire erupts in his heart that he can’t tamp down. He waits until she’s out of sight and out of earshot before he whirls around on the spot and lets out a giddy whoop in triumph. A delirious laugh escapes him.

He has research on sonograms and early fetal development back at Monmouth just calling his name…

 

III.

“Oh my god…” Gansey gasps for the dozenth time within the five minutes they’ve been watching the tiny bean-shaped form floating on the grainy grey screen before them. “Oh my… wow.” He adjusts his glasses and leans forward on his chair beside the sterile hospital bed Blue’s reclined upon. He hasn’t been able to sit still this whole session.

Blue finds it rather endearing.

“Are you done yet?” she asks him sardonically, but she can’t help but beam at him and his awestruck antics nonetheless. He’s undoubtedly more excited about this than she is.

There’s an unnamable tickle in her throat she can’t quite identify as a single emotion. It’s been a few weeks now and she still doesn’t know how she feels about this predicament of hers. She was honest when she told Noah she hadn’t meant for this to happen. Now, she’s not sure what to do about it.  
Her baby ( _her baby_ ) has a heartbeat and it’s causing one ordinarily well-put together Richard Campbell Gansey III to fall to pieces. She’s certain just by the tear trapped in the corner of his eye that he’d raise this child himself, seventeen-year-old school boy or no. She’s seen the way he fusses over every one of his friends, and she believes it.

They go out for gelato with Noah afterward, Gansey gesticulating wildly to the newcomer over the sonogram pictures he insisted he get copies of. He’s indicating where limbs will sprout on the little bean soon enough when Noah blurts, “how did this happen?” and Blue’s not even sure he realizes he’s said it out loud.

She hesitates, wondering whether she’s become close enough with these boys to share such heady information about her personal life. She lets out a long, low sigh and relents. “I was so sick and tired of hearing everyone at school talk about sex and how great it was and how, if you weren’t doing it by now, you were a _total loser_. And I just… I wanted to know. What it was like. Whether it was everything people were saying it was. So I… found a guy and I… I don’t know, did it.” She shrugs, as if this was a completely normal, sane thing for any teenage girl to do; as if it was a completely, normal, sane thing that _she_ would do. “I didn’t want to know his name, or make a big deal about it. I just wanted to get it over with and leave it all behind me. No labels, no responsibility. Just answers. Guess I was stupid…”

“You’re not stupid,” Gansey pipes up instantly, glancing up from his ongoing affair with the sonogram. “You may not have thought it through, but you’re not stupid, Jane.”

“So, _was_ it?” Noah asks from across the table, genuinely curious. “ _Was_ it? Great like everyone says?”

  
Blue wrinkles her nose, her heart still aflutter from Gansey’s compliment. “It was kinda boring, actually… I thought I’d feel something. But I just… nothing. Nothing at all.”

Both Gansey and Noah simultaneously give an appreciative hum, no disappointment at the anti-climactic answer, but total understanding, as if she’s just validated an intrinsic part of each of them they have yet to put into words.

IV.

 

She and Adam fall into an awkward chasm between friends and two people who almost dated. True, Gansey’s fumbling, but gallant attempt to woo her over to Adam’s side when they first met had been ultimately disastrous. Blue’s not so certain she would’ve said no if she weren’t pregnant. She couldn’t do that to any boy. Yet, here she is, inflicting not just one, but four boys with the heavy burden of her unborn child. It’s probably for the best she said no in the end, given the way Ronan looks at Adam intense and sidelong like he’d rather punch a wall.

Like Ronan, Adam does his best to avoid her and the situation entirely, yet Gansey is still keen to see the pair of them get along. Today, she’s irritable and volatile and wishing Ronan would stop seeing her as fragile and vulnerable long enough to teach her how to fist fight the world. Adam’s silent and thoughtful beside her in the middle of a clearing in Cabeswater. The fresh blossom of a bruise dabs purples and blues around his right eye. He won’t tell any of them where it came from and Blue’s too sensible to ask. Her mind is elsewhere today…

Slowly but surely, her body is betraying her, and it’s only the beginning. Gansey’s been spewing facts all morning about all sorts of internal unpleasantness she can expect to feel soon, if not right at this bloody moment. If she has to listen to one more word, she’s going to burst. She left Gansey to his ley line readings, stomping off to find some peace and quiet, swallowed up by the tranquility of the trees.

Adam wasn’t looking for a confrontation when he found her. He just wants company as he broods over the complexities of life as Adam Parrish. They’re both tired, overworked, and overthought. Everything suddenly feels so small and insignificant compared to this new life she’s bringing into the world. And even that, so small and insignificant in and of itself, barely the size of a lemon (as Gansey will undoubtedly tell anyone who will listen in overly zealous detail), is profound. School seems irrelevant, when she’s busy growing another person inside her and a quest to awaken Welsh kings is afoot. Both are too big, too grand for everything else in her life. She suspects Adam knows a thing or two about that; Henrietta is far too small a womb for Adam Parrish.

Her sigh acts as an invitation for Adam. She kicks pebbles off the path with her swinging feet. “I think what you’re doing is really brave,” he murmurs, his head turned to look at her while the rest of his body remains impassive. It’s the most he’s ever said to her one on one and the weight of it strikes deep in her. Her previous agitation at Gansey’s well-meaning antics spills over into gratitude, exploding out of her like a million stars. “Braver than anything I could ever do…” He bites his lip, gaze turned forward.

“Adam,” she breathes, and it stuns her how much she feels for this boy, how much she feels for all of her boys. But this one, right here, deserves the world and he doesn’t quite realize how hard he works to achieve it. She doesn’t know what kind of adversity he faces, doesn’t know what demons hurt him at night, leaving bruises the next day, but she knows it takes guts for Adam to be able to survive one day more. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.”

It’s corny, she knows, as soon as it’s out of her mouth, but it’s right. Something softens in Adam’s melancholic, worn face. “Blue…” A breath gushes out of him in a whoosh as they simultaneously embrace each other in a bone crushing, necessary grip. His hands clutch at her shoulder blade, a little too sharply as she buries her face in the cotton of his shirt. Her emotions have been running a mile a minute all day and the tears finally rip out of her like a wild beast. It’s not a romantic moment, far from it. But it’s a perfect moment, a _safe_ moment. A moment to shatter the ice in their otherwise frigid relationship. Here, they learn that they have a little more in common than they thought.

 

V.

 

She wakes to her body on fire, the digital clock by her bed blaring 2am, red, and bold, and too early. Her breath rattles from her and she _burns_ with it. Young and inexperienced as she is, she misplaces the hot, tight feeling down low as something intrinsically wrong with the baby, and panics.

But that’s not what this is.

She scrambles out of bed, disentangling herself from her sheets with great difficulty and rushes for the sewing room, where Orla’s still wide awake balancing the phone with one hand and coral nail polish with the other. Orla’s prepared sharp retort at the intrusion falls silent on her lips as she takes in the urgency in Blue’s face. With humility and disinterested grace only Orla could possibly possess at two in the morning, she collects herself up and hands the phone over.

Blue doesn’t wait.

Her heart pounds when Gansey’s voice slips onto the other line, restless and wide awake with the dulcet tones of insomnia.

“Come get me.”

Gansey doesn’t need to be asked twice. He and the Pig arrive at 300 Fox Way fifteen minutes later. Blue slips out as quietly as she can, realizing with some irony, that this is exactly how she got into this mess in the first place. He fusses, of course, looking her over, this way and that, to make certain the baby’s okay.

“It’s-it’s fine,” she confirms, though she’s vibrating, charged with something she’s never felt before. “Just… take me somewhere. I don’t care where.”

“Are you sure?” Gansey’s concern doesn’t leave him as he mentally pulls together his list of possible maladies that could be hitting her all at once. His hand reaches out to press home on her growing belly. Her breath hitches, his touch a livewire sending a shock through her entire system.

“Yes,” she grits out, and she’s hot hot hot under Gansey’s capable hands. He needs to let her go if he wants to survive. “Please, just drive.”

Blessedly, he does.

They drive down wending roads, out of Henrietta’s boundaries completely, until they find themselves in the middle of nowhere, nothing but the stars shining about them, and the cool night air’s embrace.

  
They’re alone, the only two people on Earth, with a new life, pending creation between them, and the hood of the Camaro beneath. Gansey’s hands smooth along the curve of her belly, up and down in slow, reverent motions. She keeps her eyes shut tight, the better to avoid his steady gaze and the intensity of want they mutually share.

“Gansey?” she sighs when his forehead leans down to press home to hers. The mint on his breath plays sharp on her newly heightened senses. He makes a distracted assenting noise. She opens her eyes, wide, and focused on him. “Don’t- don’t kiss me.”

“I won’t,” he says with certainty, though his gaze drops to her mouth. His hands slide down the slope of her belly again. They don’t stop.

“Anywhere,” she amends.

“No,” he agrees. He leans back away from her for a moment, a rush of cold air coming between them. One hand reaches up to his mouth. He presses a kiss to his own fingertips and guides it, closer, closer to her…

And stops. A single centimeter away from cupping her cheek. He lets the kiss hang there, letting it travel from cheek, to jaw, to her untouched mouth, never once making direct contact. He wants her to know that he wants to, that he could if she let him.

She lets out a breath, knowing, _knowing_ with precise clarity now what her body is doing to her tonight. “I need-“ Her brow furrows and Gansey wishes he could press a kiss there too to unwrinkle those worried folds. “I want- but I _can’t_ …” Tears prick at the back of her eyes at her inability to articulate how much she needs him, and how much she can’t let him touch her.

“I know,” he sighs. “I know.” His hand is still pressed to her hip, massaging smooth and gentle over the thin fabric of her skirt.

“Gansey…” She doesn’t want to sound too desperate, but the gravelly whine peels out of her anyway of its own volition. “ _Please_.” One leg parts from the other, her ankle dangling over the edge of the car as she leans back on her hands. Gansey’s breath fails him completely.

“Okay.”

He’s got a blanket in the back of the Pig, which he spreads out across the dewy grass of the meadow they’ve driven into. He lays her down across it, his hands coming to rest on her knees, parting them, oh so gently when she relents. “What can I do?” he asks her carefully as he sits back against his heels.

  
Blue throws one arm over her eyes to hide how much she just… “Just… touch me.”

He peels away her layers, one after another, only just enlightened to how he might unravel her. He presses his glasses more firmly against the bridge of his nose as he would when delving into an integral reading.

His fingers play along her thigh like frets on a bass for an extended moment, charged with possibility. Her knees give way, falling wide and consenting. He hesitates, in awestruck disbelief that this night has brought them here, but his fingers strike home on uncharted territory, utterly new to him and his inexperience. She waits for him, all baited breath, patient, as he finds his bearings. He explores, blind until finally…

There.

She nearly jerks out from under his hands at the jolt as his fingers circle her clit, once, twice, three times, and she’s panting, wanting nothing more than this, and wanting so much more all at once. “Is this okay?” he asks, tentative and unsure.

Blue nods, a violent tip of her head. “Yes. Just… keep going.”

Gansey falls silent for a moment, embarrassed at having to ask. “Would it be okay to- is it safe if I-“

  
She frowns, frustrated that his hands have stilled. “Just don’t- don’t kiss me.”

“The baby?” he inquires, his voice small.

“Didn’t you read about this?” she huffs with a pained laugh, disbelieving they’d even have to have this conversation. Not here, when her whole body is alive and aching for him; for _more_ of him.

“No…” he lets out a self-conscious laugh of his own. “I didn’t think I’d ever be here. Blue…?”

“ _God_ ,” she heaves. This moment… this heady moment… “Gansey, the doctor says it’s fine.”

“Okay.” He surrenders. “Okay. Just… hold on.” He pulls back and she can hear the rustle of fabric falling away in strips. His fingers curl around her thigh again before long. Fingers enter her first, one at a time, letting her body remember the sensation of being filled after its five month hiatus. Gansey works her open like this, until her every limb, every muscle is loose and relaxed, waiting for him.

  
It’s different this time, with Gansey. They’re unsure, figuring out how they fit together, and it takes him some false starts before he presses into her. Gravity pulls him down, down, into her and around her, his hands falling to hers. Her fingers curl around each knuckle and squeeze in time with his careful thrusts.

More than anything, he wants his mouth to find its place on her body, _anywhere_ on her body. But he can’t. She’s fierce beneath him and won’t let him forget it. _Don’t kiss me, Gansey. Do anything but._ This girl deserves more than just his fingers and this raw, carnal coupling. She deserves reverent kisses, from temple, to cheek, to chin, to the deep trench of her collarbone and down over the swoop of her ribs. He wants more than anything to kiss the swell of her belly, just there, where her bellybutton popped just last week under the strain. He wants to be able to press teeth, down into her neck as he moves with her, thrust for thrust. But that’s not his fate.

So he takes what he can get, and cherishes her with what limited resources he has.  
 

VI.

 

As soon as Blue gets big enough, Noah can’t keep his hands off her. He paws at her belly with such reverence, like a kitten with yarn. She’d be annoyed with him if this boy weren’t so full of _wonder_.

His fingers ruck up her shirt over the mound and she lets out a combatant hiss when he lays both palms flat against the globe of her belly. “Ahh, Noah, your hands are freezing… oh!” She stiffens.

Noah stops his tender admirations and glances up at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” she frowns, reaching down to cup her hand on top of Noah’s. She presses down. Hard. Something presses back within her. A hand, a foot, a tiny somersaulting forehead… “There. Did you feel that?”

Impossibly, Noah’s eyes widen even larger in his puppy-like face. “Was that just…? Did it-“

“Kicked,” Blue confirms, breathless. She fusses with Noah’s hand, so she might feel it too. Something alights deep in her heart at the new sensation, which before, had been nothing but a flutter, easily mistaken for gas.

“There’s a baby in there,” Noah gasps, as if this is the first time they’ve ever become privy to this information. “A real, live baby!”

“There is.” This time, Blue’s wonder matches Noah’s pang for pang and for the first time in this whole process, she realizes the gravity of the situation. “I’m- I’m going to have a baby.”

“ _We’re_ going to have a baby, Blue,” he sighs, leaning against her on her bed, temple to temple. “We’re not going to let you do this alone.”

“You’re really not, are you?”

Noah draws lazy circles up and around her belly with the pointer finger of his dominant hand. With his other, he lets his fingers curl around hers. “Nope.” He squeezes her hand as the baby kicks directly beneath his index. “Not a chance.”

 

VII.

Inexplicably, Ronan’s driving a little orange toy Hot Wheels car up over the hill of her enormous belly. She feels so beached and bloated, she doesn’t have the energy to slap him away, nor does she particularly want to, when he’s making growling little “nyyyyooom” sound effects as the car slides back down the slope on the other side.

He refuses to admit he pulled it out of his dreams for her. For the baby. He simply set it down on the crest of her bump not an hour before and declared it the baby’s own miniature Pig, just like Dad’s. Gansey looks up bemusedly from his copy of _What to Expect When You’re Expecting_ from his position leaning casually against the nearest wall and reminds Ronan of the tiny replica of the BMW he currently has stashed in the pocket of his jeans.

“Is that a BMW in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” Noah deadpans as he shimmers into focus not long afterward.

“It’s not…” Ronan sighs, realizing denial is a lost cause. He fishes the BMW out of his pocket and slaps it directly into the palm of Noah’s waiting hand. He tells no one about the little Hondyota he’s kept in his room, secret, like many other things...

The pair of them street race across the vast landscape of Blue’s belly, one on either side. “You know, you could do that on the model Henrietta. Just a thought…” Blue muses, pushing up slightly on her elbows and knowing full well they won’t. Ronan lets out a short laugh, clipped and to the point.

“Not likely, Maggot.”

“Keeps him out of trouble, Jane,” Gansey reminds her sensibly without looking up from his book. The sleeves of his Aglionby jumper and dress shirt beneath are pushed up to his elbows, making for a dashingly disheveled scholarly look. He looks like he could be someone’s dad. A pang of desire shoots through her, something to catalogue for later when Noah begins to dissolve and Ronan fucks off to do whatever in god’s name he’s been doing with Adam lately…

“You know,” Blue pipes up after a comfortable silence punctuated by the occasional “vroom vroom!” from Noah and “nnneeeer!” and explosion sounds from Ronan. “The baby won’t be able to play with those for at least a year…”

Noah stops, bewildered, letting Ronan crash the Pig right into him when he does. Ronan blinks back at her, mystified and insulted that she wouldn’t avail her own child of delightful toys such as these.

“Choking hazard,” Gansey coughs authoritatively from his corner, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, now with the opposite foot in front.

Blue’s throat goes dry as a flare of heat creeps over her cheeks, ears, and neck. She’s oh so impressed with Richard Campbell Gansey III. Oh so impressed… He beams from across the room, his expression softened with affection, reserved just for her. She beams back at him, her fingers absently knocking away cars as her hand splays across her belly to a soundtrack of Ronan and Noah’s cries of horrified dismay at a giant monster attack on their freeway.

“Have you thought of names?” Gansey ponders conversationally, and she can tell by his entirely too casual tone that he undoubtedly has a notebook stashed away somewhere, full of potentials.

“I hear Ronan’s a decent enough name,” Ronan grunts at the exact same moment Noah volunteers his own name, his arm flying straight up in the air like an overeager school boy with the correct answer on his lips.

The heavy door to the second floor of Monmouth slides shut a few feet away. “Definitely not Dick, I hope,” Adam offers with a tired grin from the doorway. The baby tumbles, giving Blue’s bladder a swift but hearty kick, as if they somehow know every single important person in their tiny, tiny life is reunited under one roof again tonight.

Blue reaches out a hand for Adam and he comes when he knows he’s needed. He ruffles her hair and leans down to bestow a kiss to the peak of her belly, narrowly missing Ronan’s hand, which tears away as if scalded. He and Adam share a weighty glance full of secrets kept between them before the moment is gone. “How’s little Parrish?” Adam inquires gently, making a smooth landing on the floor at her feet. Blue scoffs, shoving her swollen ankle into his waiting hands.

“What makes you all think it’s going to be a boy?” she bites back. “Just watch, a little raven girl is going to come out of here in a few weeks. And then what’ll you all do?”

“Noah’s still a good name for a girl.” Noah shrugs, utterly nonplussed. “I like it.”

“Could still call her Ronan. Just call her Rosie for short.” Ronan sniffs, his attention turned to the dirt beneath his nails. Adam, Gansey, and Noah all stop what they’re doing to stare at him, open-mouthed as if it’s the most sensible thing they’ve ever heard him say.

“Rosie Posey,” Noah sing-songs gleefully under his breath, gone back to petting Blue’s belly with his usual reverence.

“I’m not naming my child after Ronan!” Blue bursts out, crossing her arms over her enormous stomach. Her child in question begs to differ as they roll somersaults against Noah’s hand. He startles in delight, chanting, “Rosie Rosie Rosie Rosie!” while the baby kicks away.

Blue grimaces at the blatant betrayal. “ _Traitor._ ”

Blue’s still mad at Ronan for being so nonchalantly clever when the flurry of activity at Monmouth dies down. Gansey’s wandered off to confer with Adam over homework and Noah’s disappeared long ago.

  
She hasn’t moved from her position on the couch.

Ronan’s staunchly sitting in the corner, chewing on his leather bands around his wrists and doing a spectacular job of preoccupying himself with everything but his Latin homework in his lap (which is to say, he's doing nothing at all). With his legs stretched out before him and his headphones clapped on and blaring something with a horrid dropped bass, he’s the picture of a rebel without a cause, reluctantly pursuing academics because his friend in the other room told him to.

By the current state of things, Blue has been thoroughly ignored. Not only ignored, but neglected. She wrinkles her nose, clears her throat. “Ronan.”

Nothing. His head bobs in time to the music only he can hear.

“Ronan,” she tries again.

Nothing. He taps his pen against his notebook in time to an unheard beat before turning back to declensions.

“ _Ronan_!”

She searches her general vicinity for something to take in hand. Gansey’s left an eraser on the couch, leaving it to sink deep between the cushions. She pulls it out now and tosses it at Ronan. With a clear shot, it bounces off his forehead and down onto his Latin notebook.

“What the fuck?” he hisses, utterly venomless. He yanks his headphones down around his neck as he glances up at his sole companion in the room.

“Ronan, help me up,” Blue pleads.

He huffs a breath with a roll of his eyes. “Ahh, Maggot,” he sighs in defeat, throwing down his homework beside him and clambering to his feet. She reaches for him and he heaves her up and out of the sinking quagmire of the couch cushions. Despite the token Ronan Lynch bite, there’s a gleam in his eye and a twitch to his sharp mouth that speaks of something akin to endearment.

“Thank you,” she huffs, blowing her hair out of her face.

Ronan rolls his eyes and pulls her to him, close and firm against his body. He’s twisted her sideways to accommodate her belly. Her nose barely grazes his chest as he squeezes her, utterly uncharacteristic of the stoic rebel image he tries so hard to emulate.

He clears his throat and lets her go without a word, keeping this too locked up tight, affording her a secret just between them. To Blue, the gesture is the kindest Ronan’s ever afforded her. “Thank you, Ronan.”

Ronan coughs with a wave of one dismissive hand, already preparing to descend back into the depths of his bedroom. “Just so you know, you owe me your firstborn child!” he calls over his shoulder. Blue flips him the bird, even though he’s no longer there to see it.

VIII.

Her first born child, as it happens, decides to make their appearance in the world barely a week later. Seven days and Blue Sargent’s world turns right on its head. Nothing has gone right with this labour business. She’s already done with it after the third contraction. This kind of physical damnation is not worth having a baby over.

The baby’s early. She doesn’t have time to dwell on that when three out of four of the boys burst through the delivery room door at once, Ronan and Adam wedged up tight against the door jamb before Gansey can stumble inward first.

The doctor glances across the room at them all, hardly amused to find three flustered Aglionby boys standing in her delivery room. “Gentlemen, are any of you family?”

They each exchange glances and shake their heads in turn. Gansey’s nursing a stitch on his right side, a testament that they ran here to reach her on time.

The doctor lets out a put upon sigh. “Which one of you is the father, then?”

“I am,” every single one of them volunteer simultaneously. Ronan and Adam both share an immaculately accurate _if looks could kill_ expression while Gansey breathes full blown determination. Blue can’t help but smirk at her ridiculous boys before another contraction threatens to split her in two.

“We can only allow two visitors,” the doctor clears her throat matter of factly. “As her mother is here-” She gives a brief nod to Maura, holding Blue’s hand on the right side of the bed, closest to the window. “-only one of you can stay. The other two will have to wait outside.”

“Blue, who do you want?” Gansey inquires diplomatically, although she can see by his vibrating hands that his heart simply would not take it if he had to turn his back on her.

His name is already on her lips before she even considers that pitiful look on his face. She knew. She’s known all along that it would be him. Gansey knows what he’s doing; Gansey’s trained for this very moment. The miracle of birth has been Gansey’s choice song on repeat for the past nine months straight. Not only is he the most qualified, he deserves to be here. What’s more, Blue needs him there, like she needed him every single time hormones punched her square in the gut; like she needed him every single time her body thrummed with desire, volatile, and oft-poorly timed. She needs his kind words and steady head.

She may need no man, but in the face of giving birth to a watermelon-sized human, Richard Campbell Gansey III seems like a safe bet.

Adam and Ronan are undoubtedly disappointed they can’t stay, but the pair of them sag with relief at escaping the mantle of responsibility that is an agitated Blue Sargent in drug addled, excruciating pain. “We won’t be far,” Adam promises from the doorway.

Ronan, flushed with equal parts embarrassment and squeamishness, sets his gaze everywhere but at Blue. He coughs, searching for adequate words. They finally come to him and his eyes shoot straight through her. “Kick ass, Maggot. Kick that baby’s fucking ass right out of that womb room. Got it?”

The doctor and Maura are both utterly scandalized by the vulgarity, but the remaining occupants share an unexpected laugh between them. “Just get out of here, both of you,” Gansey insists. “Before she has the opportunity to throw things at you.”

“Noble sacrifice you’ve made for us.” Ronan nods in deep respect for Gansey, giving both he and Blue a hearty salute. “We’ll see you on the other side with Ronan Junior in tow.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Blue laughs, and is sorely tempted to throw something at him just to shut him up and run him off before the next contraction hits.

Noah graciously makes his grand entrance while all hell has broken loose. Blue’s resorted to curling in on herself as her best defense mechanism against the agonizing pain ripping through her, back to front. Gansey and her mother have tried to get her to walk around the room, but she can barely stand it. The epidural takes the edge off, but she still feels as though a great demon is trying to claw its way out of her tooth and nail.

Gansey holds her face in his hands, stroking the pads of his thumbs across her tear and sweat soaked cheeks, practically sobbing himself. “I wish I could take this pain away from you, Jane. I wish I could.” If she were any other girl, he would take up her hands in his and press his lips to her knuckles one by one, but Blue is the lethal exception that keeps him from driving to action. Her screams come in barely audible rasps now and she’s just so tired… so very tired. “Jane. Blue… look at me. You are doing so well, sweetheart. So well. Just a little while longer and everything will be over.”

Blue rattles through the cycle of the latest contraction and slips back against the pillows, relieved, but barely. Noah goes to her. A lethargic smile plays at her downturned lips at the sight of him and she reaches out with lazy arms. “I didn’t think you’d make it,” she splutters, shaking under the strenuous efforts of the past five hours.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Noah beams back at her, doing precisely what Gansey wishes he could do. He sweeps her matted hair out of her face to press a reassuring kiss to her temple. Her hands find his and he pulls them to his lips. Gansey catches the wink he sends him and he knows Noah’s done him a deep kindness, regardless of how much it hurts that he couldn’t do it himself. “I’m here. How’s Rosie?”

“Making her mother’s life a living hell already,” Blue grits out and it’s unfair how close the contractions are coming now. Her grip on Noah’s hands may be bone crushing under the strain, but given the circumstances, his are far safer than Gansey’s, which are already throbbing from hours of comforting. Noah, of course, doesn’t even break a sweat and instead, presses the back of his hand to Blue’s forehead.

Blue sighs and sinks under the cool weight of Noah’s icy hands. “God, Noah, that’s perfect,” she moans as the heat radiating through her in a constant pulse begins to dissipate.

At the foot of her bed, the doctor splits her time between watching her dilation, checking her vitals, and worries to Maura over how delirious her daughter’s become with this recent babbling to no one in particular. Maura throws her a dry smile and says a word or two about psychics in the family, passing Noah and Gansey a wink as she does so. There are certain things about this baby Maura and the women of 300 Fox Way already know, things Blue refuses to let them put to words. None of them had been remotely surprised by her predicament, for one thing. Explains all the days leading up to the conception wherein the whole household went up in flames of whisper and careful tiptoeing around her. Quite frankly, she’s surprised she’s gone this far without someone letting slip precisely what she’s having. She’ll find out soon enough…

Out in the waiting room, Adam watches Ronan pace. They’ve been cycling through fits of wakefulness and exhaustion together. Ronan’s either up and constantly moving or slumped against Adam’s shoulder in the line of uncomfortable chairs, foam stuffing spilling out of cracks in the seams of each seat. Adam’s stomach rumbles- he’s had to wander off to scavenge for food in the canteen for two meals now. Meal number three is almost upon them. He wishes he could pull Ronan down by the shoulders and keep him still, but he’s a blur of nervous energy, fulfilling the role of anxious new dad for them all.

“Ronan,” Adam addresses him. Ronan spins on his heel so fast, he overbalances, flinging is arms wide to catch himself. “Come here.”

He does, flopping down into the chair next to him, legs spread wide, one knee bumping Adam’s. “What?” His hands still fidget, one reaching up to rub the crown of his head, where his hair has grown in soft; it’s due for another shave.

By way of answer, Adam tentatively reaches up for Ronan’s wrist, letting his hand slide until they press, palm to palm against one another. His fingers fold over Ronan’s and they fit together better than either of them could ever imagine.

“Oh.” Ronan calms, settled, finally, in Adam’s hands.

The doors finally swing open ten minutes later to wield the sight of one frazzled Richard Campbell Gansey III, wearing a faded blue hospital smock over his salmon coloured polo. He’s grimy and smattered in blood. Ronan’s breath hitches as he tamps down hard on Adam’s hand while Adam scrambles to attention beside him.

“It’s a girl.” Gansey’s a breathless, sobbing mess. “A beautiful, healthy little girl!”

Ronan deflates with relief in his seat, the pressure on Adam’s hand easing off. “Thank fuck.”

“Can we see her?” Adam requests quietly, timid at the thought of meeting this profound new person who has already changed their lives for the better.

Gansey’s spent his words on his announcement, rendered speechless at this big, life altering moment. He simply nods. The pair of them clamber to their feet. Ronan reaches him first, reeling him in for a sturdy pat on the back for a job well done, taking care of their two girls when they could not.

Blue’s boneless and spent in the hospital bed, holding a bundle of pink blankets on her lap. Noah sits on the edge of the bed on her right side, his index finger stroking along the opening in the fabric of the little swath. Ronan, Adam, and Gansey’s grand entrance remains lost on her as she stares and stares and stares at this tiny marvel she’s created. She did this. She chose it.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Ronan blasphemes, his voice all too loud beside her, startling her out of her reverie. She blinks up at him, darting a challenge to dare insult her child. His fingers pry the hem of the blanket away from the baby’s face to get a better look. “Wrinkly little thing,” he adds with a visible shrug.

“You try tunneling your way out of a birth canal for six hours straight, Ronan Lynch!” She wants to hit him, but that would involve extricating a hand from its protective hold on her daughter ( _her daughter_!)

“She’s beautiful,” Adam offers, with an apologetic smile to Blue at Ronan’s blunt antics. “So… Rosie?” he hazards a guess, cautious in his assessment.

Blue releases a put-upon sigh. “Rosie. But I’m not putting Ronan’s name anywhere on her birth certificate!”

“Not even as the father?” Gansey presses his glasses up against the bridge of his nose, all serious business.

“I somehow doubt they’ll let me list three teenaged boys and a ghost on a legal document.”

Noah slaps a hand to his heart, utterly moved that he’s even thought of. “Aww, Blue!”

“What’re you gonna put, then?” Ronan wonders, genuinely curious.

Blue’s gazes falls to Gansey across the room, searching for permission. He inclines his head in a subtle nod, eyes still brimming. “Gansey,” she announces, decisive and more sure than anything in her entire life. “But you all will mean so much to her. I want you all to be an important part of her life.”

“Of course,” Adam breathes, leaning down to wrap his arms around her. The other three follow and soon enough, all five of them huddle up on the bed, arms encircled around this miraculous, powerful thing they share between them: their bond, tightened by this child, who would grow up, so loved, and so very wanted. By each of them.


End file.
